He made a note to self that they were strangers from the fearful look on her face and somehow guarding posture as she sprung to her feet when she noticed the man. They were too far away for George to hear the conversation but small bits of it reached his ears. She repeated several times “no” with her head moving accordingly. He overheard the name “Laura” and George decided that it was her name. The man talked convincingly when she disagreed, George understood it from her head moving side to side, saying no, and her hands, now on her chest, crisscrossed and palms to her shoulders. After a few long minutes of debates she gave up, she drank the water, he offered, put her shoes on, holding on to his arm and they started walking in the direction where the man came from.
George felt a relief and was ready to walk into his way, but a sudden thought struck him still, what if that would be his daughter walking in the woods with a stranger, what would he do? He would give everything away just to be there for her. And he started following them in the distance. It was not too difficult, even so they did not talk, but they walked loudly. They were following a trail and shortly they reached the road with a few cars parked at the site. It was Saturday and there were a people who run into the sanctuary of the woods from their daily life in the city.
Laura and a man got into a white Volvo that was parked with its back to the trail and a license plate perfectly visible for George, equipped with his binoculars. He pulled out a pen and little notebook from the left pocked of his jacket and scribbled the number of the plate, double checked it and buried the notebook back into his pocket.
As the car took off, the first drops of rain were rustling in the bushes, as they touched George’s face, he got startled.
The rumbling sound behind his back, somewhere close, reminded him of thunder, and he thought it was strange, it was off season…
He opened his eyes wide, realizing that he was sitting in the same place where he dozed off. And at the same time, just a few minutes ago, he knew, he followed a woman, by the name of Laura that took off with a stranger. He had a horrible headache, he felt as if his head was split in two, right in the middle, splitting his reality, which were both real in his mind but his logic whispered somewhere from afar that it was impossible and he has to choose one over another. Two blurry pictures tried to impose onto each other, but it did not offer any clarity, on the contrary, it made George’s thoughts blurrier then before.
It started to rain and he dismissed the strangeness as a vivid dream. He pulled his raincoat out, put it on, collected his belongings and started to walk down the hill toward his car.
His dream echoed in his head, bouncing in every direction like madness in its prime. Scared of his next action he reached into his pocked for the notebook, and… it was not there. He found only the pencil. His rifle and back pack slid down to the ground, he stood there without a thought, like a neighboring tree. The plate number was fresh in his memory. He rolled his sleeve high up, and wrote the number again …twice, then he mentally cancelled all his previous plans and arrangements for tomorrow and perhaps for tonight. He imagined how angry Martha would be, but it did not matter anymore…
He put the pen back into his pocket, rolled the sleeve carefully over his scribbling, protecting the information inked over his skin that was also tattooed over his brain, stored in all kinds of memories: short, long, strange, just name it, and did not need any protection. And he briskly walked to his car. The rain was not rustling anymore, but was roaring like an angry beast, overwhelming all the gentle sounds of the forest. The forest stayed quiet and helpless. George got soaked to his bones in no time and he did not notice that or did not give any significance to it. He was walking steady, immersed in his thoughts while drops of rain were collecting over his soaked clothes, which were not absorbing anymore water, and were forming small streams that were rolling down his body. If anyone would see George at that time, they would think that the Rain Man stepped out of the dark cloud and was hunting the woods.
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